Attitudes of Indian Children as Revealed by the Analysis of the Free Writing Test.

Mitchell, Mary J.

Writing samples of 100 elementary and 100 secondary students from each of 12 American Indian tribal groups in attendance at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools were analyzed to determine whether there were: differences between age and tribal groups that could be assessed via analysis of the "Free Writing Test"; certain attitudinal trends common to all groups; and identifiable areas of tension common to all tribes and/or to specific groups. Each writing sample was derived from response to a picture depicting a typical culturally oriented scene and was analyzed for: (1) attack (whole/mature, large and small detail; people, animals, story, description, listening); (2) social response (family, racial labeling, antagonism, social responsibility); (3) economic response (barter, buy-sell, economic independence and dependence); (4) worries (food, sickness, death, intra-personal social); (5) feelings (pleasure, anger, fear, and other intra-personal). Results indicated: significant differences between all tribes and age levels, with tribal differences being four times as great as age level; the least differences in the whole/mature response, suggesting an innate ability to respond at this level regardless of cultural, tribal, and age differences; significant differences between the broken and maintained cultures; integration conflicts among tribes of widened horizons; differences in the areas of tension among tribes. (JC)